


Abyss

by Hadrian_Pendragons



Series: Royal Trio Needs A Hug [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: All Akechi, Character Study, Dark, Gen, Introspection, P5R Spoilers, akechi has issues, canonical character death mention, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25984060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hadrian_Pendragons/pseuds/Hadrian_Pendragons
Summary: He convinced himself so very many times that he needs nothing more than himself, his wits, his desire and his hatred.
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: Royal Trio Needs A Hug [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1887304
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Abyss

It’s as if he stood on a pillar in the center of a precipice. A single island in the midst of a yawning void—no forward, no backward, only down, down, down, his only choices to stay where he was, trapped, or to take a step and fall into the abyss.

Akechi hated this dilemma. This… restriction on his person, forced upon him by dire circumstance and loneliness. Loneliness that eventually became the desire to  _ be  _ alone. Desire that became resentment and blame toward the scum of a man that was his  _ father. _

He convinced himself so very many times that he needs nothing more than himself, his wits, his desire and his hatred. It is more than easy to do. It isn’t as if, once he dawned that mask of the  _ Detective Prince,  _ anyone dared to look for anything more. People were easy to pacify, satisfy, so long as they heard what they wished to hear and the pieces fell into place well enough. It mattered not what the puzzle looked like, it mattered not if the pieces were cut and shredded and forced into place. So long as they  _ had  _ a place, no one became any the wiser.

Akechi’s place was alone. Akechi’s place was giving benevolent smiles and dull conversation, was to become an idol for the young and catching the media’s eye and directing it where it would never see the  _ true  _ atrocities of the world. 

His place was… His place was…

The abyss yawned. The darkness rose to engulf him. He heard the cries and pleas and confessions. They echoed about his ears, overshadowed by the repeated sound of a gunshot—many, many times against faceless adults, all of which he had been ordered to end, all of which had fallen to  _ mental shutdowns.  _ Not assassination. Never assassination.

There were two in particular, however, that stuck out. Hit his ears with a sundering explosion of noise.

The first was gazing into the eyes of a boy. A man. Someone his age, dark irises watching his every move. Expectant. Knowing. 

And yet  _ defiant, defiant, defiant  _ still.

_ How dare you.  _ The voice was his thoughts, and those thoughts echoed about the abyss with clarity and the oh so familiar hate.  _ How dare you look at me that way. How dare you accept your fate and watch me with defiance. How dare you, how dare you, how dare you  _ **_do what I could not._ **

What he could not...

His place…

Laughter pierced his mind. Unrestrained. Unhinged.  _ Insane. _

_ The Detective Prince was such a lie. How could no one see through it? But you did. You always knew. That I was nothing but a fraud. _

The edges of his pillar began to crumble. It should have instilled panic in him. Fear.

He felt nothing past the anger.

The second shot… the second shot was accompanied by an echo. By a voice that was his own, but lacked anything that he knew was his own. A voice that knew it’s place. A voice that stood with confidence and pointed a gun at his head with sheer confidence.

A voice that had accepted the truth, but had chosen not to defy it.

It rattled him like nothing else could. It shook his very core, his soul, as if he were nothing more than a hollow doll full of rattling pieces that could never fit together.

This was the image of him, to the world, to his  _ father,  _ to himself. This was who he was, without the hate. A tool.  _ A tool. _

_ He had been a tool all this time, either way. _

_ How dare… _

_ How dare he... _

_ How dare he make a tool out of me? _

_ How dare he press a gun to my head with my own hand? _

**_How dare he die with only that image of himself in the man’s mind?_ **

Die?

The abyss pressed in. The pillar chipped away, until he was balanced on a single foot. All he heard was laughter.

_ Die? _

Gunshots and laughter.

His body shook. But he wasn’t afraid. He couldn’t find an ounce of fear of the darkness, of the abyss inside of him. And yet he still fought to hold his balance.

He didn’t understand why.

_ Laughter. Laughter. Laughter. _

**_Shut up._ **

The pillar crumbles, and down, down, down, he plummets into the nothingness.

  
  
  


His clock ticked away on the wall. Tauntingly. Hanging slightly asymmetrical, as if a minor earthquake had shifted it from its meticulously chosen position. The sound echoed off the four empty walls of his bedroom, interrupted only by his own ragged heaving for air that should not exist.

_ Should not exist. _

His throat burned with… something. Something he refused to think about. He focused instead on the ticking, ticking, ticking. It elicited annoyance in him. It drove feeling into his limbs, if only so he could push aside the blanket and place his feet on the carpeted floor.

The floor of his apartment. His horridly bare apartment, that he had lived in for years now but never spent much time beyond sleeping in. 

The sheets were soft. The carpet was scratchy. The single window in his bedroom, with a view of a street over the judicial district, allowed sunlight to pour into his room, warm and haunting.

His hands tremble.

“What… is this…?”

He feels as if that cold void is still present in his mind. It slips into the cracks, fills in the blank pieces of his soul. It overwhelms him.

**_Shut up._ **

He tossed his pillow at the clock. The force is enough to knock it loose, and both crash to the floor. But it refused to stop ticking.

His heart became louder, however. Each beat pounded in his eardrums, drowning him in the sound of his own blood.

**_Shut up._ **

Laughter.

Now, he recognized it for whose it was. He recognized it as his own. It began as a quiet thrum in his chest. It built into a rumbling chuckle. It passed into a painful howl.

**_Shut up._ **

He bit his tongue and stood.

Gunshots echoed in the abyss in his mind.

And it took but a moment to open a drawer, shove his shirts out of the way, and gaze upon what should have been the weapon of his demise.

He can still feel the grip in his hand, its twin held by his double and  _ pointed directly at him— _

He shook himself and took the weapon. He pushed it into the loop of his belt—he still wore his work clothes, rumpled, but he couldn’t find it in himself to change his appearance anymore—and resolved to find the one responsible. Be it a god or be it that defiant man that made his veins burn with anger.

But first…

He turned on the news. And there, front and center, were the confessions of the man he could only ever despise.

First…

...the  _ fake Detective Prince  _ was going to bring Shido down into the darkness with him.


End file.
